1. Technical Field
This application relates to a beverage bottling plant for filling beverage bottles with a liquid beverage, with an information adding station for adding information to the beverage bottles. This application also relates to a method of operating a beverage bottling plant for filling beverage bottles with a liquid beverage, with an information adding station for adding information to the beverage bottles. This application further relates to a device for the application of banderoles, label strips and/or tax labels on containers, whereby the banderoles or label strips are designed to run over the container cap or cover and the adjacent areas of the container neck.
2. Background Information
In beverage bottling plants, the bottles are first filled with a liquid beverage in a filling machine, which is often a rotary filling machine. After the filling process has been completed, the filled beverage bottles are transported or conveyed to a closing machine, which is often a rotary closing machine. The transporting or conveying arrangement can utilize transport star wheels as well as linear conveyors. The closing machine closes the bottles by applying a closure, such as a screw-top cap or a bottle cork, to the bottle mouth. The closed bottles are then usually conveyed to an information adding station, wherein information, such as the product name or the manufacturer's information or logo, is applied to the bottle. The bottles are then sorted and packaged for shipment out of the plant.
In some beverage bottling plants, the information adding station applies banderoles to the beverage bottles. The term “banderoles” as used in this application also means, depending on the individual application, label strips and/or tax labels or tax strips.
Some examples of devices for the application of banderoles to container lids, caps and covers and/or to the neck of the container may be found in the references described in the following.
Devices of this type are described in German Patent Nos. 26 42 046 B2 and 35 07 739 CI, for example.
These devices have a gripper cylinder which is installed above the transport device and with its axis of rotation at a right angle to the longitudinal axis of the container. The gripper cylinder picks up the banderoles from gluing segments, by which the banderoles are supplied with different types of glue.
The gripper cylinder runs with its applicator element tangentially to the container cap or cover and thereby presses the banderoles onto the top of the container cover. Then the banderole is also pressed by applicators against the sides of the neck of the container.
These devices are relatively complex mechanically on account of the gluing segments that are located above the container and the gripper cylinder that rotates above and at a right angle to the containers. The location above and at a right angle to the containers is also problematic because the glue that drips from the gluing segments cannot normally be collected and removed in the same manner as with the horizontal arrangement of the gluing segments and gripper cylinder, which means that dripping glue either falls onto the containers and can thus contaminate the containers and/or the device itself.
German Patent Publication Published for Opposition Purposes No. 20 55 417 describes a device for the application of banderoles over container caps and the adjacent areas of the container neck. The device has a transport carousel with a large number of holding devices that use control cams to grip and hold the containers that are being fed to the process, and an applicator device that applies a banderole to which glue has been applied with a first terminal area to the neck of the container.
Associated with each holding device is an applicator device that has the construction described below: A first applicator is provided which presses the first terminal area of the banderole against the container neck. The opposite, free end of the banderole is simultaneously pressed against an auxiliary pad that lies above the container cap in an extension of the container neck.
This auxiliary pad is fastened to the free end of a pivoting lever which, after the first applicator has performed the first application initiates a downward movement of the pivoting lever, taking with it the upper end of the banderole, and continues until the banderole is moved into an essentially horizontal position, whereby a part of the banderole already comes into contact with the container cap. The horizontally projecting part of the banderole is now applied by means of an additional brushing mechanism that is driven by a movement control system, during which it separates from the auxiliary pad, on the side of the container neck opposite the first applicator.
This applicator device is relatively complicated mechanically, because the movements of the first applicator, the auxiliary pad and of the brushing mechanism must be coordinated and controlled.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,129,045 describes an applicator device for banderoles that works with two symmetrical pivoting arms which are attached to a bell so that they can pivot. For the application of a banderole, this bell is placed on the container cap so that the banderole projects bilaterally beyond the container cap. Then the bell is lowered onto the container cap to first apply the banderole there. Then the two applicators are pivoted toward the two sides of the bell to press the banderole against both sides of the container neck. This device is likewise mechanically quite complicated, because after the application of the banderole to the container cap, first a downward movement of the bell must be effected, and then the pivoting movement of the two applicators must be executed.
A device as described in German Patent Application No. 195 08 766, in which the banderole to which the glue has been applied is attached by a first terminal area of the container neck, whereby the other terminal area of the banderole still projects upward beyond the container cap. Above the container, held by a holding device, is the actual applicator device. This device consists essentially of two applicators which can be moved independently of each other, each by means of a respective curved track and the corresponding sensing elements.
For this purpose, first each applicator which is to the side of the attached banderole is moved toward the container, as a result of which it presses the banderole against the container neck and is simultaneously bent so that the banderole is in contact on the container cover. The second applicator, which is then moved in a like manner, bends the banderole even farther and presses the remaining unattached portion of the banderole against the container neck. One disadvantage with this device is that the bending and application of these banderole are not done optimally.
In particular the application of the banderole by the second applicator sometimes results in faulty applications of the label because the applicator that executes a pivoting movement is generally at an unfavorable angle when it strikes the banderole that generally sticks out from the container at a large angle, which at higher machine outputs and/or when the inside of the applicator is contaminated with glue, can cause the banderole to be crumpled or creased by the applicator and to be applied to the container neck in that condition.
At this point, reference should also be made to the device described in German Patent No. 38 33 850, which according to the object described in its application is designed to press film segments on container necks and caps, but thereby describes components and assemblies that can also be used for the object of this application.
On this device, the following configurations, among others, are worth mentioning here:                the arrangement of the applicator device above the outlet star wheel of a labeling machine, and        an applicator element which is supported by a rocker that can be adjusted in an axial plane.        
Because the apparatus described in German Patent No. 38 33 850 was designed for an altogether different application, there is no need to describe it further or list its disadvantages here.
As a rule, the only labeling machines that are used for the labeling of banderoles or tax labels or tax strips are those that are realized in the form of rotor machines. As a rule, for this purpose the containers are held in a transport or labeling star wheel 14 which is driven in rotation and are moved forward by the star wheel. Above this star wheel, at intervals and positions corresponding to the individual container (receptacles), a banderole dispenser device is located which delivers the banderoles 13 to the containers 11. The application or the actual fastening of the banderoles 13 to the containers 1 can take place in the second work station, or in a third handling station.
On these machines, the containers 1 to be labeled are delivered or removed by inlet or outlet star wheels, respectively. It is also conventional to have containers delivered from a first transport star wheel to a second transport star wheel. This transfer occurs at the tangent point of the arcs of the participating transport star wheels. To allow this transfer to take place as smoothly as possible, it is absolutely necessary for the containers to move as little as possible into the circular contour of the transport star wheels. In this regard, it has been determined that it is particularly advantageous to transport the containers through the labeling machine and through the transport star wheels in an orientation such that the smaller of the two dimensions of the container “length” and “width” always points toward the center of the transport star wheels, while the larger of the two diameters is oriented in the tangential direction with regard to the transport star wheels.
Any other orientation of the containers would require specially shaped receptacle pockets with a significant undercutting of the flanks. Configurations of this type have not been widely used in actual practice, and in all of the labeling machines of the prior art, the containers are transported through the labeling machine in the orientation described first above.
Starting from the conventional orientation of the containers in the labeling machine and the transport star wheels, the following portion of this description assumes that the containers are transported with their transverse side facing forward.
A closer consideration of the devices of the prior art for the application of banderoles to the container neck or cap shows that one thing common to all the devices of the prior art is that they are only capable of applying these banderoles in a defined, unchangeable orientation with respect to the container transport direction on the containers.
For example, some manufacturers only produce devices of the prior art that attach the banderole essentially parallel to the transport device, i.e. in the direction of the longitudinal side of the containers. Other manufacturers of devices of the prior art only produce devices that apply the banderole essentially at a right angle to the direction of transport, i.e. in the transverse direction of the container.
On the other hand, the prior art does not include any devices that make possible the optional labeling of a container in either orientation.
If plans then call for the application of tax labels or tax strips to expensive alcoholic beverages, for example, consideration must also be given to the fact that these beverages are frequently not bottled in rotationally symmetrical bottles, but quite often are packaged in molded bottles that are not rotationally symmetrical.
Consequently, the user of labeling machines of this type is forced to purchase its labeling machine from a manufacturer that applies banderoles 13 on all relevant bottles in the same orientation with respect to the longitudinal direction of the container, regardless of whether, for example, a different orientation might be desirable from the customer's point of view or in line with aesthetic aspects.
This fact is generally perceived to be a disadvantage in practice.
What is meant by rotationally symmetrical, according to at least one possible embodiment, is that the container or bottle, when viewed from above along the central vertical axis of the bottle, which central vertical axis is disposed to run through the center of the mouth and neck of the bottle, has uniform radial dimensions extending from the central axis. For example, most beverage bottles, about their outermost periphery, have a cylindrical profile when viewed from above. Such cylindrical bottles may be rotated about their central vertical axis and will always appear, when viewed from above, to be in exactly the same rotational position as before any rotation was performed. On the other hand, bottles or containers that are not rotationally symmetrical are bottles that have a length dimension and a width dimension when viewed from above, which length dimension is greater than the width dimension. For example, a bottle that is not rotationally symmetrical may have a profile that appears to be oval-shaped or rectangular when viewed from above. When such a bottle is rotated, for example, 90 degrees, the length dimension is now perpendicular or substantially perpendicular to its original position before rotation. The view from above has therefore been altered by a rotation of 90 degrees, and thus does not present essentially the same view as before rotation. Any rotation, such as, for example, a 45, 60, or 90 degree rotation, about the central vertical axis of a bottle that is not rotationally symmetrical will produce a view that is different from the original. Even a 180 degree rotation may not produce the same view if one end, side, or half of the bottle, along, for example, the length dimension is different from the opposite end, side, or half, as those ends, sides, or halves would be flipped.
As a result,